Volkswagen Buys Italdesign-Giugiaro

Volkswagen AG has agreed to buy 90.1 percent of VW Golf designer Italdesign-Giugiaro SpA to beef up the German automaker's design staff. The Italian studio will become part of VW's Lamborghini brand, the automaker said in a statement from Wolfsburg, Germany.

Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani founded Italdesign in Turin, Italy, in 1968. It now employs about 1000. Family owners of the closely held company will keep the 9.9 percent VW isn't buying.

Financial terms of the deal were not released. VW wants to expand globally and in North America over the coming decade. It's working to overtake Toyota permanently as the world's largest automaker by volume and has set a goal of 800,000 units in the U.S. market by 2016 from about 300,000 currently. It will rely on Giugiaro to provide the quality and volume of car designs necessary to fulfill those aggressive goals.